Hidden by the Mist
by Absol Master
Summary: The mist is closing in. Alone, a boy stands in the shadows, looking for his mother's grave. And he does not know, but he is being watched.


A story about the Dreamy Ghosts of the Cemetery in Zipangu. I'm not sure if GMS has Zipangu, but I think it does.

* * *

. _h i d d e n _b y **t h e **_m i s t_ .

_…close your eyes, give in, don't fight_…

In the darkness, nothing stirred. Only mist, mist and black, something immaterial yet definitely opaque, swirling and circling round the tombstones. It surrounded the boy, as he glanced about, helpless, blind, tugging at his collar to keep out the cold.

_Mother…where are you? _

He had come to pay his respects to his mother. It had not been too long ago—he had been there with her, when she had died.

It had been too sudden, too strange, too _bizarre_.

* * *

_The boy stood bolt upright. The mists had been haunting him with false images for a long time, sometimes making him see fingers and figures, incandescent in the moonlit darkness. They were only images, not really there, fleeting images created in his mind's eye. _

_But this could not be his imagination—a sound. A real as the touch of mist on his skin, or the cold that pierced his bones. _

"_Mother! Did you hear that?"_

"_It's nothing at all; don't play tricks on your imagination," she soothed as they searched for the grave of the legendary samurai, Hayashi Yamada, waiting to pay their respects to the warrior. _

_He refused to let it pass as a mere whisper fabricated by his mind. It was unmistakeable—a distant, distant ringing beyond the mist that surrounded them. No, not a ringing, a _voice. _A true voice, sweetly singing, too far for words to be made out, too soft to understand, soft as feathers brushing the pale headstones. It was yearning, half_…hopeful?

Mother is level seventy-two, _he thought. _She will protect me.

* * *

He crept through the dead grass, breath parting the grey swirls before his face, clearing his vision for instants, allowing him a glimpse of the white field of icy tombstones before him, before the grey rushed back to hold him captive again.

She was somewhere near, near the place where she had died, he is sure. She had to be close, because this hill, the angle, the ground, was all too familiar. This was where her last breath was drawn, a shaky diminuendo.

* * *

"_It's really there! Can't you hear it?"_

_His mother heard it as well. It was a song, definitely. It haunted her with sudden flames and ice of fear, filled her soul with grief so terrible she wanted to collapse. And most of all, it made her sleepy. _Sleepy…

_The boy shook his mother as her eyelids sank, the woman's movements losing all energy. "Mother! I need you to protect me! No, don't sleep, don't…"_

_He had thought nothing of her falling asleep; it would only take a few shakes and shouts to wake her. What he did not know was that it was a spell, the death-spell of something watching from behind._

_There was a moan._

_The song stopped. _

_And her body fell into the mist, cold, like ice, and gone. Lost forever._

_His cry was heard throughout the night, like the cry of a raptor over mountains, before his feet turned him, disconnected entirely from his brain, and took him flying away from the cemetery._

* * *

They had buried her around here, the high-levelled priests who could ward off these ghosts of the cemetery. It was her death anniversary today. He had to pay her his respects. He was fourteen now, at least, and less vulnerable than the year before. He had to find her—it was taboo to break such a tradition.

Around him, the graves gathered like a field of dead flowers, their petals pointing to the orb of the moon. It was dead silent, now he realised, as he ascended to a point on the small slope where the mist opened and allowed soem view.

Then, it began as it had the last time. It rose around him like the swell of winds too strong to stand against. And it was beautiful, tuneful, amazing. Painful.

"_Raymond, Raymond, look back to me, come back, come back…"_

Suddenly, he felt the entire were turning below him as he heard the wind carry the moving call back to his ears, to his soul. It was a voice, a voice so lyrical it touched every level of his heart, from the core, made his soul tremble with tears.

_"I'm sorry, Raymond," _it went on, voice becoming more and more familiar. _"I'm sorry for leaving you so early. I miss you! Come here, back to me, back to the sky, where we will always be together! Let me take you in my arms, Raymond. Give up your life and come into my embrace."_

And he let the tears fall, helpless against them, knowing that the voice that spoke was his mother.

It was like a breeze blowing over him, a blade of grass, and he was swaying, bending to its power. He grieved, longed, was moved, and the voice was exploiting his wish. A little part of him, in the core of his soul, said that it was all a lie, that the promise would never be fulfilled. It held on to his body for all that his sensibility seemed to tell him. But who was to know? Maybe his sensibility was holding him back, from reunion, the sweetest moment he could ever long for_…_

He hesitated, feeling the mist gather about him again, feeling the darkness bear him up in black arms.

_Mother…_

He wanted to go back. He closed his eyes,

and there was a moan.

The song stopped, as if frozen in time.

And suddenly, he was being borne up away from the world, into the world that he had neer seen before, into the sky that held everything he waited for.

* * *

_"Raymond!" he heard a shout and turned, and saw the smiling face of his mother, his grandparents, and all who had ever left the world._

_Suddenly, joy taking his heart higher than it ever had in his mortal life, he ran, through time, through the light, and found himself in his mother's embrace, in a special warmth he would never leave, ever, again._

Ever.

* * *

Down below emerging from the fog of the graveyard, the beautiful ghost took in the energy and mana of the boy she had just killed, growing stronger with the little energy that she drew in. It had been almost too easy to kill him; he had been one of the weakest souls so far.

And she threw the pale, cold corpse aside, not seeing the smile that lingered, and would forever remain, on his lips.

* * *

Another dark story. I wonder what is getting into me these days. A bit of irony in there? Something close to that.

If you didn't notice, I try to keep my fanfics as related to Maple as I can. The most Maple-unrelated story of mine is either Roses on the Windowsill or Memories in the Snow.

* * *

By the way, (here's a little ad) no less than **3** people said that Memories in the Snow is one of the best things/the **best** thing they have ever read on FanFiction. net before. So read!


End file.
